"I'm a ghost, and you show me a film with Jedi ghost thingies in it? Wow. Way to be sensitive." We're sitting on either end of a massive sofa in Theo's living room watching a huge, curve-screened TV, a bowl of butter popcorn the size of my torso between us. I let Theo eat most of it. When I make the ghost comment, he nearly chokes on a handful.
"Sorry," he coughs. "Do you want me to turn it off?" "No, it's okay. I was only joking. I bet I would've been the biggest Luke Skywalker fanboy if I hadn't died before this came out." Theo looks awkward still, even though I was trying to alleviate the tension.
"How old were you... when you died?" he asks, hastily grabbing a fresh handful of popcorn. He always makes sure to reach for the stuff when I'm not, so our hands haven't even brushed once.
"You look about my age." "I don't want to talk about it," I say, snappily. Theo's popcorn-filled hand goes limp in his lap. "Sorry. That's super fucking insensitive, isn't it? Sorry."
I sigh. "Sixteen. I was sixteen. And I can look any age I want, so I chose the one that I thought would be the best fit for you."Theo silent again and the tension's so palpable that I want to slice through it with a blade. "How... how did you die?" "Theo," I say, voice low. I don't want to go there. "Sorry, sorry. I don't mean to be so intrusive - I'm just don't like not knowing things."
"It's okay. Just... don't ask me again, please." I grab a handful of popcorn so I don't go touching the skin where the scars would be if this body was a year older.
"Okay. Sorry."
"It's okay."
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The movie ends.
Theo yawns, stands, stretches, then looks down at me. By the crease between his eyebrows, I can tell he'd almost forgotten I was there. No wonder - the sofa's so long that I might've forgotten him, too, if it weren't for the constant crunching of popcorn. (And the fact that I kept glancing at him while the movie was playing. His face was so relaxed, no trace of a frown.)
"Do ghosts need to sleep?" I shake my head and stand, dusting the crumbs of popcorn into the empty bowl. "Not as far as I know, but I do pretty often anyway. It makes time pass by quicker when somebody doesn't need my help." He frowns again - in sympathy this time, I believe.
"Must get pretty boring." I shrug. "Gives me a lot of time to think."
Too long.
He coughs "Do you want to sleep now?" I shrug. "Guess it's up to you." "Well, we have plenty of guest rooms, and I'm going to sleep now, so you might as well." He eyes my ancient school uniform.
"Do you need a change of clothes?" I pluck at the scratchy jumper, stretched to a breaking point from the number of times I've grown and shrunk in it. "Honestly, I don't even know if I can change clothes. I've never tried."
"You've been dead, what... forty-five years? And you've never tried to change your clothes - not even once?" I shrug. "I've never had the chance to. Soul calls for me, I help, then I fade back out of existence. Doesn't exactly give me the chance to go clothes shopping." I think what I've done today. Been treated to a sandwich. Gone to a park. Watched Star Wars. Shared popcorn. I don't think I've ever been called out to by a soul and acted so... casually.
There's always been a sense of urgency, life, and death. With Daniel... it's more peaceful. It's unnerving. "Do you... want to change clothes?" he asks. I raise my eyebrows at him. "Ugh! Not like that!" He crosses his arms. "Honestly, the second you tell someone you're gay..." My laughter is strained, but in any other world, it would be genuine. "Fine, then. If you have any clothes going spare, I'd like to find out if I can wear them." I follow him up the stairs and into his bedroom. It's massive, just like the rest of the house. He has a double bed in one corner, a walk-in wardrobe in the other, a desk underneath the window and clothes and bits of rubbish strewn over the floor. Just like any teenage boy's bedroom, except everything in here looks like it costs more than everything I've ever owned combined. Daniel immediately goes over to the wardrobe and starts digging through a set of drawers.
I half expect him to pull out some brand of designer silk pajamas, hand-sewn with gold thread or some over the top shit like that. Instead, they're just cotton - one set grey, the other dark blue. He hands me the blue set without looking at me and walks out of the room, down a massive corridor lined with flipping three-pronged candle brackets, can you believe it? This house just reeks rich.
He leads me into one of the first rooms. It's basically the same as his, except less personal. "You can sleep here, if you want - all of the rooms are basically the same." He shrugs. "Well, I'm going to shower. There's an en-suite if you want to too." "My first shower in forty-five years," I say dryly. "Can't wait," He smirks and leaves, closing the door behind him. I end up not showering because I don't really remember how they work. Besides, dirt seems to just slide off me, and I never sweat because I never grow tired. Perks of being a dead boy.
As it turns out, I actually can change my clothes. It's a welcome surprise. I remove the 60's school uniform, put on Theo's pajamas (they smell, I can't help noticing, like laundry detergent and the sweet scent of rotting leaves) and crawl into the bed, stroking the fabric against my arm and letting the illusion of change and choice wash over me.
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Every time I fall asleep in the school it's nearly silent save for the occasional whistle of a caretaker working late or the whine of a heater as it's switched on remotely.
After decades of my own silence as my only company, I've become a light sleeper. That and I don't really need to sleep at all. That's why when a thump echoes through the wall at my head, I'm immediately upright and listening into the darkness. The room's bathed in shadow. It makes the pile of my clothes on the floor look like a sleeping monster just waiting to attack.
That's why when a thump echoes through the wall at my head, I'm immediately upright and listening into the darkness. The room's bathed in shadow. It makes the pile of my clothes on the floor look like a sleeping monster just waiting to attack. What do I have to be afraid of? I'm dead, for fuck's sake. (And the only monster sleeping here is me.)
The thump makes me jump again - it sounds like somebody's hitting part of their body against the wall - and a loud groan echoes through the closed wooden door of my guest room. It's Theo- who else? I wonder for a second if he's... attending to himself, and grimace a little. Then the moan echoes through the house again, and it sounds so heavy with grief - like it's making its way through tears - that I'm halfway to my door before I can even consider whether or not it's a good idea. His room's right by the stairs, so it's not hard to find. I stand outside his half-open door for a second, my fingertips lightly touching the handle, and ask myself what I'm doing here.
My fingertips lightly touching the handle, and ask myself what I'm doing here. I start to turn back but then I hear him sob. I feel the desolate sound tugging in my chest. Slowly, I push open the door. He's lying on his back, legs spread out, lost in a dream gone sour. Every few seconds, his eyebrows furrow and he kicks out, his foot colliding with the wall. He looks like a dog chasing a cat in a dream, but coming from him it's nowhere near funny. (We had a dog when I was alive. My father drowned it in the creek when we could no longer afford the vet bills.)
"Evan?" He grunts and rolls over, muttering something into his pillow. It sounds like "Mum."
After a moment's hesitation, I step over the threshold of the door and sit on the end of his bed. Reaching out a tentative hand, I touch his exposed ankle. "Theo?"
Theo sits up sharply, gasping, the bedcovers dropping down and pooling at his waist. He pants heavily, his chest heaving with each shuddering breath. He sleeps without a shirt on. A patch of moonlight that escapes from the half-closed curtains catches his honey skin, revealing the sprinkle of dark hair along his chest and starting and disappearing below his navel. "Sorry for waking you," I say quietly, removing my hand from his ankle. "I think you were having a nightmare." He looks up at me, his curls plastered to his forehead with sweat. His breathing lets up a little, but every now and then the air he takes in comes out as a half-sob. "What was it about?" I ask, gently as I can. Theo looks me in the eyes, opening his mouth and closing it again a second later. He shakes his head.
Noticing that his chest is exposed, he yanks his bedsheets up to his neck and flops back onto the mattress. "Are you alright?" He nods. The way he's curled up with the covers tucked just under his chin makes him look like a childlike somebody I want to protect.
(Don't get attached.)
I nod in return, even though he's not looking at me, at get up to go to the door "I'm so fucking lonely, Evan," he mutters, so quietly that I nearly miss it. He buries himself a little further, killing the possibility of making eye contact again.
"How are you supposed to fix that?" I don't know what to say. Sighing, I close his door behind me and head back to the guest room. I lie awake for the rest of the night, unable to sleep and wondering all the while if Theo is also still conscious.